Synchronicity
by Cassiana Rose
Summary: When Tsunade returns to Konoha, with a five year old Naruto in tow, they move into the Uchiha compound. How will Naruto and Sasuke cope growing up together. And Itachi? Eventual SasuNaru and others. FemNaru
1. Of Snakes and Foxes

Morning. This is my first attempt at a SasuNaru, but it's going well so far. I hope you like it.

* * *

_Synchronicity_

It was the same dream as he always had, when he wasn't dreaming of the day, three weeks away, when he entered the academy as a student of Konoha, one step closer to being a proper shinobi. It was the only dream he had had in his short life that had sent Uchiha Sasuke running from his bed into his mother's arms on a regular basis, where he begged his mother to 'make it go away'.

The dream was innocuous enough to begin with, as Sasuke padded around a forest barefoot, stepping into and out of patches of warm sunlight. After a while of walking, he began to notice that a small, black snake had slithered up beside him, it's cold, smooth scales brushing gently against his foot. Sasuke pushed it away with his foot gently, and the snake rolled over twice, each time exposing its pale, defenceless belly. Once it had righted itself, the snake raised itself up and hissed at Sasuke, baring teeth he hadn't known it possessed. He started walking slightly faster, aware that the snake was following him closely. He could feel it's presence over his shoulder, brooding behind him. Without thinking, he turned back to see the snake, and had to stop himself from crying out, because Uchiha's didn't do that, as he saw that the snake had grown to the size of Sasuke himself. He began to scramble away from the snake, but as he turned to run, the snake once again got larger, blotting out the sun above him.

Sasuke let out a gasp, and tumbled backwards over an upraised root, and slammed backwards into the suddenly cold forest floor. The snake reared up above him, forked tongue darting between its scaly lips. It hissed briefly, and plunged towards him.

Sasuke awoke with a start and a yell, launching himself from his bed, and straight into something remotely warm and solid. He kept his eyes closed for a moment longer, before he opened them, and found himself looking up into the face of his brother, which was crumpled and twisted by the scowl he usually wore at this time in the morning. His face relaxed a bit, and he reached down to ruffle Sasuke's hair.

"Bad dream again?" Itachi asked, trying to stave off a yawn.

Sasuke nodded, trying not to let his stoic big brother see that his eyes were glistening with tears.

"Want me to stay with you?" he asked, his voice softening slightly. Sasuke clung tighter to Itachi, his fingers turning white with the intensity of his grip, and nodded. Itachi picked him up, and carried him over to the bed, where he lay him down, and pulled the sheets back over him.

Every time Sasuke tried to close his eyes, he could still see the cavernous mouth of the snake, reaching down towards him to end his life. He lay there for a long time, eyes staying resolutely open, before his brother pushed him over slightly in the _futon_ and lay in beside him. Sasuke's wide black eyes, lined red and bloodshot with tiredness and tears, looked up at his brother, who was smiling gently, something he didn't do very often, but when he did, it was either sadistic and scary, or warm. This one was warm, like puppies in hot springs.

"Don't worry," Itachi told him, as he settled himself on the floor beside Sasuke's futon. "I'll tell you a story about a snake and a fox. It's good." Itachi smiled again.

Sasuke nodded slightly reluctantly, settling down further into his bed.

Once upon a time, there were ten demon lords, each with immense power and unlimited amounts of chakra. They each had a different number of tails, from the one-tailed tanuki to the nine-tailed kitsune. There was one different demon, however. The ten-headed snake demon, the most malicious and gratuitously violent demon of them all, liked to prey on humans and weaker animals, especially the young ones.

The demon lords all tried to live in harmony, occasionally battling and testing their strength against one another.

The beautiful fox demon Kyuubi, mated to a lesser fox demon with three tails, was considered the Queen of the demons, as she had the greatest chakra of them all. The demon snake always challenged her position, taking advantage of its influence over the lesser creatures.

The demon lords had lived in relative harmony for a number of years, and during that time, Kyuubi and her mate had raised a number of kits. They were happy, with only the occasional outbreak of violence between the demons.

Until, that is, the ten-headed demon took it upon himself to rid the world of Kyuubi's children. The demon bit them once each, all ten of her children, injecting his deadly poison into their bodies. Kyuubi was left to watch them, along with her poor, beaten mate, die, writhing in pain as the demon's ice-like poison swim slowly through their vains.

Kyuubi mourned her loss for ten days and nights, before she gathered the other demons with her, and waged war against the demon snake. The battle raged for seventeen days, until the lesser demons supporting the snake demon fled, and he was left alone, against nine other demons. They each took one of the demon's heads and ripped it from its body.

The body writhed momentarily, one head still intact, as blood began to flow into the trampled earth. Kyuubi's strong jaws closed around the final head in a moment, crushing it like an egg.

The killing of the snake demon was the last time the demon lords banded together, as they went their separate ways after that, heading to all directions of the compass, trying to live in peace. But that could never be so.

Humans saw the demons as a threat, and began to battle them, sealing them away within human hosts, one by one. The fox demon would not come out of hiding easily, so the humans forced her from her hiding place by killing one of her children.

The demon levelled four villages with a wave of one of her tails, and turned on the village of Konoha, where the body of her child was being kept. She stormed towards the village, only to be stopped by an arrogant, yellow-furred man, riding atop a giant frog.

"Turn back," the frog said to her, his face serious and grim. "They mean to seal you, to make you a subordinate like they have made me."

The fox demon's snarling grew louder. "The murdered my child. I cannot let them live."

Crouching further down, the frog pulled a katana from where it was slung on his back, and raised it to the fox.

"Then come at me like you mean to kill me."

The demon grinned, a feral smile that exposed all of her teeth, before she crouched down, hot red chakra rolling from her in waves. "Get ready for it, frog-man."

She leapt forwards to attack, claws bared, the trees beneath her withering and burning away from her immense chakra. Mid leap, the great fox Kyuubi, queen of demons, turned completely black, and swirled down into a single speck of ink.

The great demon Kyuubi was reduced to nothing but a seal on the stomach of a baby, pacing around behind the bars of the mental cage the fourth Hokage had created at the cost of his life. She roared a few times, barked and snarled, but knew it was futile. She would wait until the child could talk, and then call her here, so as they could have a chat.

* * *

Itachi finished his story of the battle between the fox and the snake, and looked back down to the futon, where his brother was sleeping soundly, the fear that had previously been marring his pale face. He smiled down at him, smoothed the errant locks of his younger brother's hair, and left the room, sliding the shoji shut quietly.

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See you next time.


	2. She Ate My Slug!

Hello! Second chapter, which is a great feat for me (I usually get to the first chapter and give up a lot) but here I am. Hurray.

Okay. Hope you like it.

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The kunai thudded into the tree trunk, one after the other, in a perfectly straight line. Itachi smirked from his position on the underside of the thick branch, idly spinning one of his remaining kunai on his finger. He began to walk down the tree, channelling chakra into his feet so as he didn't slip down the bark and plummet to the hard forest floor. Barely a leaf stirred as he landed gently on the floor. 

"Cool," Sasuke said from his hiding place in a bush. He clambered out of the foliage, a few leaves sticking in his hair. Itachi pulled them out, and ruffled his soft black spikes gently, before hoisting Sasuke up onto his back.

"Shall we go home?" Itachi asked, over his shoulder at his brother. Sasuke nodded.

"Can we go across the lake?"

Itachi didn't answer, but set off on the quickest route home, through the forest. As the trees began to clear, the stunning blue of the lake came into view, and Itachi set off across it, his chakra balanced so evenly that the water didn't ripple.

"Itachi-nii-san?" Sasuke asked. Itachi looked up at him again. "Are you going to join the police force when you're older?"

Itachi shook his head. "When I become an ANBU I'll go all over the world, visiting other hidden villages. I'll go to them and learn their secrets. I want to be a good ninja. Then I might settle down in a village somewhere."

Sasuke frowned. "Not Konoha?" he asked.

Itachi laughed and stopped walking, which caused Sasuke to scowl in the way he had learned from his cousin Shisui.

"Not everything I need is in Konoha. Some things I don't need are everywhere here."

Itachi's face remained stoic and frozen for a moment, before he slipped a smile onto his face. "Let's go home. Mother will be wondering where we are."

"Right!" Sasuke said happily, and they set off across the lake once again, towards their home, which was slowly coming into view.

Itachi dropped his little brother to the ground as a tall blonde woman approached them, smiling at Itachi. Sasuke scowled once again, without even noticing it.

"Itachi-san. It's nice to see you again," she said. When she was about a foot from them, she stopped and bowed politely. "How have you been?"

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and smiled down at Sasuke.

"This is my little brother," Itachi told her evenly.

"Ah, so you're Sasuke-kun. Itachi spoke about you so much when we were travelling together. My name is Tsunade."

Sasuke's face became neutral, and he bowed to her. "It's nice to meet you."

From the main house, a voice called out Sasuke's name into the still air.

The boy took the opportunity to dart away from the blonde, speeding towards the house. He slipped his shoes off and padded towards the shoji, sliding it open gently, and closing it behind him.

"Go and wash your hands, Sasuke-chan. You can help me prepare dinner," his mother, Mikoto, said without turning around from where she was cutting vegetables.

Sasuke sped off to the bathroom to wash his hands, before he ran to his room to fetch a new shirt. He slid the door open and closed, and turned to his wardrobe.

He frowned. His bed was a mess, the duvet in disarray and the sheets wrinkled. Sasuke always made his bed, without fail. It was part of the rules of the house that the bed must be made in order to get breakfast.

He tugged on the bottom of the duvet, and jumped back with a gasp. There, curled up in the middle of the bed, was a skinny blonde girl, hair in loose bunches, with clothes far too big for her.

She was snoring gently. Sasuke backed into his wardrobe with a thump, and the little girl twitched slightly, her breathing pitching. With a slight gasp and a jolt, she was awake, her wide blue eyes blinking slowly. The whisker-like scars on her cheeks twitched slightly as she turned around to look at him. After a moment of blinking, she opened her mouth and screamed.

* * *

Sasuke rubbed the throbbing lump on his head, pouting at the little girl who clung to Tsunade's leg, blinking watery eyes at as many people as she could. Her bunches had been fixed, and were quivering high up on her head as she shivered. 

"I was just cold!" she cried, her lip wavering as if she were to burst into tears at any moment.

"It's okay, Naruto-sama. We invited you and Tsunade-hime to stay. We'll let you have a bed soon enough," Fugaku said, smiling down at the little girl. He gestured for her to sit down, and she flopped to the floor, while Tsunade sank more gracefully down.

Itachi took a seat beside Naruto, smiling down at her briefly.

"'Tachi-nii-chan?" she asked in a small voice, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt. "Why's he staring at me?"

Sasuke started slightly as he realised she was pointing directly at him.

Mikoto and Fugaku laughed slightly, and Itachi glared at Sasuke briefly.

"He's fine, Naruto-sama."

Sasuke stood up and turned away, heading outside. Maybe he would go into the village and visit some of the other children he would be going into the academy with, who he had played with for a year.

He'd go to Shino's house, and see if he was there. He only hoped the bugs wouldn't get him.

* * *

Mikoto kept smiling as her son left the room, thanking whatever god there was that he didn't slam it loudly. Sasuke was prone to the occasional tantrum every now and then, but was growing out of them. 

"Naruto-sama, are you here to go to the academy?" Fugaku asked.

Naruto nodded happily, her blonde hair dancing around her face. "I start in 23 days." The paused for a moment, frowning.

"What's wrong, Naruto-sama?"

"Can I go play, please?" she asked, standing up from the table. Her t-shirt slipped slightly from her shoulder but she pulled it back up.

Tsunade nodded. "No fighting please. And no swearing either. You need to be on your best behaviour if you want to go learn to be a ninja."

Naruto gave her a wide grin, bearing all of her teeth, and a thumbs-up. "I will."

As she left the room, Tsunade sighed. The three other people in the room looked at her.

"What's wrong?"

Tsunade shook her head, leaning her head in a slightly wrinkled hand. "She's getting to be too much for me. I'm beginning to feel my age for once." She sighed. "It's that demon. She has a bad influence on my little girl, telling her stories and calling on animals to come visit her. Did you know that she has a pet fox?" Tsunade asked in a slightly desperate voice.

Mikoto raised an eyebrow.

"Yes! Tamamo brings home dead birds and squirrels. And we don't even have a home to call our own."

Mikoto sank down beside Tsunade on her knees, laying a hand on her back.

"Don't worry, Tsunade-hime. She'll even out. The Academy will be good for her. We said when you contacted us that we would help you raise her well. If you get back to doing missions, we'd be happy to look after her."

Tsunade was inconsolable. "She tried to eat Katsuyu once. And she broke a man's leg once with a kick."

"Naruto or the fox?" Itachi asked.

"Naruto." Tsunade laid her table and said softly, "I need a drink."

* * *

"Sasuke," Naruto called out, her blond hair trailing behind her as she ran towards him. He didn't turn around. Naruto growled. 

"Teme!" she shouted, running towards him. He stopped for a moment, and then carried on walking. Naruto smiled happily as she realised she had his attention.

"I saw him first, forehead girl!"

"Nu-uh, Ino-pig"

Naruto looked past Sasuke's large hairdo, and saw a pink haired girl with an exceedingly large forehead and a cute red bow, and a white-blonde girl who didn't look at all like a pig, both rushing towards Sasuke.

She could see him blanch, and walk more slowly. Naruto, however young she was, had her perceptive moments.

She ran up to Sasuke, and caught his right arm. "Sasuke-kun, can you show me around the village please? I need to know my way around if I ever want to find you."

Sasuke nodded thankfully, and they took off deeper into the village, leaving the two girls gaping in the street.

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Thanks for reading.  
Cassie xx

(p.s. reasons for Naruto's being called '-sama' will be explained later, plus why she's not hated by anyone)


	3. Tamamo chan

Hello peoples. Thanks for reviewing, to everyone who did. I'm trying to keep people in character, so any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

Quick note, I HATED the latest manga chapter (385, I think) and I'm not going to consider it's existance. I am no longer listening to Kishimoto-sensei. No way.

Anyway, I hope you like this chapter.

Disclaimer (because I haven't written one before) : I don't own Naruto. If I did, Naruto and Sasuke would be together. And Itachi would be lovely. But alas, it isn't so.

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"What's that?" 

"The Academy."

"What's that?"

"The Hokage's house."

"What's that?"

"The Academy. Still."

"And that?"

"A ramen shop."

The little girl let out a squeal of excitement and grabbed the unsuspecting black-haired boy by the hand, and pulled him towards the little ramen shop. Naruto scrambled up one of the stools in an animalistic manner and began to shout at the top of her voice.

"Ramen, ramen, I love ramen."

Sasuke paled, and started to back away from his little blonde lodger, but she turned and pinned him with a blue-eyed stare, and for some reason, unknown entirely to him, he advanced towards the little shack, and pulls himself up onto a stool that was taller than him.

A man, presumably the owner, came forwards, and smiled at the two youths.

"Hello!" Naruto shouted happily, her face contorted slightly in a vulpine grin. "Can we have some ramen, please."

The shop keeper nodded. He called out something indistinguishable amid the sound of clattering pans, before he settled his attention back to the two children.

"You're an Uchiha, aren't you?" he asked, his brown eyes piercing Sasuke's midnight ones. Sasuke nodded, his face remaining set.

He looked Naruto over once, before his eyes widened. "You're Minato-sama's daughter, aren't you."

Naruto smiled happily. "Yep. You knew my daddy?"

The man nodded, smiling once again. "My name's Teuchi. He used to come and sit in that very seat, and we'd have ramen together. It's nice to finally meet you, Naruto-sama."

She took a moment to thank him, then began to scratch feverishly at the whisker marks on her cheeks, then stopped abruptly. "Is Ayame-nee-chan here?" she asked, sniffing slightly at the air.

_She can smell her?_ Sasuke asked himself. _How can she do that? What else can she do?_

"I'll go and get her for you. Your ramen will be ready in a few minutes."

Naruto let out a whoop of excitement as the man went through to the back of the store. Sauske blinked compulsively at her for a few moments as she continued to bounce up and down on her chair, chanting her mantra, 'ramen, ramen, ramen'. She looked, to him, like any other child, excited and relaxed. There was something more to her, which told him, through her speech, that she had grown up with adults, with little interaction with children. She was weird, like that Inuzuka boy who spoke to dogs. Sasuke frowned.

"Nee-chan!" Naruto shouted loudly, launching herself from her chair, over the counter and into a slightly older, brown haired girl's arms. The girl staggered a bit under the sudden assault, but wrapped her arms around the blonde, laying her forehead on the crown of Naruto's affectionately.

_Does she know everyone here? _

"When did you get here, Naruto-imoto?" she asked, setting her back on the counter, her back to Sasuke. For a brief moment, he felt dejected, but recovered himself quickly. Uchiha's were _never_ put out. It was written in the clan book.

"Yesterday. I got to sleep in a _bed,_" she whispered happily.

Ayame smiled fondly at her, and said, "That's wonderful, Naruto-chan."

The little girl scrambled back over the counter and settled onto the stool beside Sasuke, before she looked at him and smiled openly.

"This is Sasuke, I live with him." She gestured avidly at the raven-haired boy, and Ayame smiled nicely at him. She was kind, Sasuke had decided, and genuine.

"I'm Ayame. It's nice to meet another friend of Naruto's, other than Itachi-sensei."

Sasuke looked up at her. "You know my brother?"

Ayame and Teuchi laughed slightly. "Everyone knows Itachi," Teuchi told him. "And everyone knows the Uchiha clan. Were expecting great things of you, Sasuke-san."

Sasuke shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"And of you, Naruto-sama."

Naruto puffed her chest out, her large shirt spilling from her shoulder. "I'm already great. Best kunoichi ever. Other than Tsunade-ba-chan."

Behind him, a bell rang, and Teuchi clapped his hands. "Ramen time."

Naruto began to cry happily.

"And then Naruto-chan _bit _him. And Tamamo-chan bit him too. He couldn't walk for days," Ayame said, amidst howls of laughter from Naruto and her father. Sasuke merely smiled.

"I had fun with Naruto-chan, and Itachi-sensei was a great team-leader, even though he was younger than me."

Naruto sighed happily for a moment, before her head sprang up, and she looked down the street, her qzure eyes flickering madly as if she were searching for something.

"I gotta go, Ayame-nee-chan, Teuchi-ji-san. I'll see you soon. C'mon Sasuke."

She grabbed him by the hand, and they darted down the street, Naruto in the lead, and headed back to the Uchiha compound, even though Sasuke was sure she didn't know the directions.

Tsunade had had a few too many sake, and it wasn't even six o'clock in the evening. Mikoto rubbed her back gently as the older woman sobbed into the table. It didn't seem to help that she had a four-tailed fox tugging on her pony-tail 'playfully', and her errant 'daughter' had been gone since midday.

"And that damned fox is such a bad influence on her. She bites people, you know. Properly, with teeth and everything. And she likes the taste of blood."

Itachi stroked the fox on the back, and picked her from the floor. As he tickled behind her ear, the little fox went limp, and her mouth hung open, letting go of the wet blonde hair she had been gnawing on.

"She seems nice enough to me."

Tsunade sobbed slightly harder. "Not that fox. The _demon,_" she hissed. "They talk, you know. All the time." She sat up and sniffed, her eyes red and bloodshot. "That's why she knows so much. That's why she can punch so hard when she gets angry. Her eyes go all red and she goes all growly. I hate Minato-sama for letting her do that."

The fox in Itachi's arms jumped to attention, and barked loudly a few times, before going limp again.

Fugaku raised one eyebrow at the little orange bundle, who gave a contented little growl, and closed her brown eyes.

"And now, she's on her way here. Can I go to bed please?" Tsunade asked. Mikoto took her by the hand, and led her away to a dark, quiet room, where she could recover from her self-inflicted drunken haze.

The shoji slid open with a bang, and Naruto was standing in the doorway, Sasuke's hand trapped in hers like a nut in a cracker, her bunches in disarray.

The fox in Itachi's arms leapt towards the door, and with a bark and a burst of red petals, she became the size of a large wolf. "Tamamo-chan!"

The fox jumped forwards, pouncing little girl, bringing her and Sasuke to the floor, where Naruto laughed and tried to squirm away from her rough tongue, as it darted across her face.

Her squeals of delight were missed by Sasuke, who got to his feet, brushed himself down, and moved towards the table. Before he could reach it however, the fox collided with him from the side, throwing him to the floor, its warm tongue and breath ticklish against his shrouded collar bone.

Sasuke held back a laugh for as long as he could before it spilled from his lips, even as he tried to push the fox's muzzle away from him.

He succeeded, and it sat back on its feet, both tails swaying gently in the air.

"Who is this?" he asked, scrambling over to his fathers side, hiding behind him slightly.

"Tamamo-chaaaaaaaan," she replied happily, rubbing her nose between the fox's ears as her tails coiled around her legs.

The fox pulled her down to sit beside her, and wrapped her tails around her almost possessively. "She's my very best friend. Tamamo-chan goes everywhere with me. Even to visit her mummy."

Itachi's eyes narrowed, and the suddenly appeared Sharingan in his eyes began to spin slowly. Naruto laid a hand on her stomach gently, as behind and around her, Tamamo's fur began to bristle, and she began to growl.

Naruto looked up, and directly into Itachi's red eyes, as he own eyes began to bleed the same colour. In a voice that was not her own, she hissed , "Murderer."

* * *

Thanks for reading. I hope you liked Tamamo - the inspiration for the bit where Itachi is holding her came from Lilo & Stitch. I'm watching it . 

Soooo...thanks. Later.


	4. Of burrows and trees

Sorry about the wait guys. Here's chapter 4

Before a single breath had been taken, the murderous chakra in the room began to swell, almost becoming tangible in the air.

_'What is this?'_ Sasuke thought to himself, as the pressure in the air began to increase, making him want to flee, crying, to his mother's embrace.

Itachi's eyes widened, and he shuffled back slightly until his back was flush with the wall.

After a moment, the little girl, whose eyes were burning red and fierce, pounced at Itachi, her usually stubby little nails suddenly longer and more pronounced. Sasuke shut his eyes for the briefest moment, and when he opened them he gasped slightly.

Tsunade was standing in the middle of the room, one hand over her nose, one on the forehead of the struggling little girl, who swiped her fists into thin air.

The horrid pressure in the air began to subside, but Naruto still hadn't stopped in her struggle. Her eyes faded back to blue, and the whisker marks on her cheeks became less vivid.

"Well, that was…interesting," Fugaku said, braking the silence.  
Tsunade removed her hand from Naruto's head, and the little girl went flying to the floor, squealing briefly in the moment before she hit the floor.

"What do you want to say to Itachi, Naruto?" Tsunade said in an exasperated voice.

Naruto rolled over until she was looking up into her guardian's tired face. Aftera moment, she blinked, and sat up, swivelling herself around to face Itachi.

"I'm sorry, Itachi-nii, but you have evil eyes," she said quietly. Tsunade rubbed her eyes again when she heard Fugaku gasp.

"The Sharingan is not evil," he told Naruto, in the same voice he used to tell Itachi off when he was angry. "It is the heritage of the Uchiha clan, one which we take great care to carry on through our lineage."

Naruto blinked at him, her face entirely blank and without understanding.

"Hebi has those eyes," she said. Sasuke's ears perked up, and he started paying proper attention to the conversation once again.

"Who is Hebi? Our eyes are a genetic trait, and no on in our family has ever been given such a coarse name as 'snake'," Fugaku said, his eyes narrowing slightly at the little girl.

She shook her head defiantly, not quite understanding all of his words.

"Hebi was a demon. Hebi and Kyuu-chan got into a big fight, but he's not here any more," she said, her finger resting gently on her nose.

After a moment, Naruto walked over to Itachi, with the whole of Itachi's family watching her carefully. Tsunade sighed and began to shuffle back to her bedroom.

Naruto climbed gently up into Itachi's lap, and threaded her arms around his neck and resting her chin on his shoulder.

"You're not Hebi, are you?" she whispered to him. Itachi was about to answer when he felt a drop of moisture against his cheek. He pulled back slightly to see Naruto's eyes brimming with tears, and her nose and whiskered cheeks twitching slightly.

Using one of his arms to hold her skinny fram to his body, and the other to gently stroke her hair, he said "No, I'm not. Don't worry."

Naurot blinked up at the ceiling, her eyes still damp with unspilt tears. She had pulled the various duvets around her into a little nest of warmth, even though the evening was still mild.

She gave a loud sniff, and rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. Even a year after Hebi had stopped appearing in her dreams, she was still scared of him coming back and tormenting her. He would come and talk to her when Kyuubi wasn't around, whispering evil words into her ears that made her wake up crying, desperate for comfort.

The eyes Itachi had flashed through her mind once again, and she let out a sob, as quietly as she could, and once against dashed the tears away from her cheeks once again.

She pulled the duvets over her head, and snuggled down into her little den, before she felt the tears she had spent the whole time she was doing her teeth and changing for bed begin to work their way to the surface. After a moment, she rolled onto her side, and curled around herself, before she began to cry, her sobs becoming louder and louder as they broke away from her. She lay crying for a few moments, before she felt something move against her duvet. After a moment, light spilled into her carefully constructed den, and a small, bony figure tumbled in beside her. Sasuke sat there, blinking darkly at her for a moment, before he pulled the duvet down over the hole he had made, and scooted closer to her.

"Don't cry," he told her plainly.

Naruto's sobs subsided a little, and she rubbed her face hard again, feeling it sting harshly against her fingers.

"I'm scared," she told him. Sasuke looked confused for a brief moment, then smiled slightly.

"I'll chase the monsters away," he said, telling her what his brother had so often told him.

Naruto shifted over, and before he could protest, she had wrapped her thin arms around him, and before he could think of what to do, he was hugging her back.

That was how Itachi found them the next morning when he came to look for his little brother.

**_A month and a half later_**

"Sakura-chan?"

"Here!" the little pink haired girl squealed happily.

"Ino-chan?"

"Here, Sensei!" shouted the blonde girl, just as happily and loudly.

"Choji-kun?"

"Here!" the little boy said around a lollipop.

"Sasuke-kun?"

"Yes," he said in a low voice.

"Naruto-sama?"

The little girl who sat halfway back in the class room jumped up and down on her seat, her blonde pigtails bouncing excitedly. "Yes! YES! I'm here! I'm here Shizune-chan!" she shouted loudly.

"Right," said Shizune-sensei. "Hinata-chan?"

Nothing happened. Shizune tried again.

"She's here, sensei," said Naruto, pointing down beside her chair. Over the past month at school, Naruto had become overly fond of the little, white eyed child, but poor Hinata had just grown more and more nervous about being at school. Hinata's wide white eyes appeared above the desk, and she blinked out at Shizune.

"Yes, Hinata's here."

"Sensei! Sensei! Over here!" shouted a little white haired child, Taro. When Shizune turned to look at him on the other side of the classroom, he settled down considerably.

"Why are we all "-chan" and "-kun", and Naruto-chan is called "-sama"?" he asked her, shouting over the general murmuring of the class.

Everything suddenly fell silent. The child with her hair in her mouth let it fall out, and it landed on her desk with a sodden thud.

"It's because my Daddy was the Yondaime Hokage," Naruto said happily, puffing her chest out with childish self importance.

Shizune smiled nicely, but shook her head softly.

"I'm afraid that's not the whole reason." Everybody turned to look at the open door, where their other sensei, a half-masked, silver-haired man stood. "Shall I tell this story, Shizune-sensei?"

Most of the children in the class shouted happily, but Sasuke rolled his eyes. Tsunade had already told him this story. The children settled down into their chairs, and Kakashi sat on the teacher's desk next to Shizune, who started telling the story. Sasuke folded his arms and settled his head on top of them, and naruto settled her ehad on his shoulder. Over the past month and a bit, Naruto and Sasuke had grown a lot closer, their friendly competition drawing them closer to one another.

"Okay. A while ago, before some of you were born, there were ten demons. The biggest and most powerful of those demons was Kyuubi no Kitsune, a big fox with nine tails. Kyuubi live north of here in a cave in the mountain. All of the other demons had been put into people so as they could help to protect countries and villages, and Kyuubi was the only one who hadn't been put into a person yet. So, the fourth Hokage, Naruto's dad, decided to get the demon to come to the village. She wasn't happy about this, really, so she got angry and attacked the village. The Hokage sealed the demon into his daughter, Naruto, who was just a baby. The Kyuubi protects us, and Naruto does as well. That's why she's a very important girl."  
There was silence for a moment following Shizune's story, and one of the children shouted out "That's a rubbish story. There was no fighting in it!"  
Kakashi smiled happily at all of the children. "I'll tell you a better story then," he said, smirking at Shizune.

The kunai thudded into the tree, each one hitting the target, but not quite in the centre. Sasuke smiled to himself gently, happy that he was improving slightly. Itachi had tried to teach him to throw kunai before he entered the academy, but to no avail. Sasuke had no aim.

At the next tree, Naruto called his name. "Watch this!"

She scrunched her eyes up for a moment, and a sudden burst of red chakra appeared around the kunai. Most of the children in the little clearing in the forest stopped what they were doing to look at the little demon girl in amazement.

After a moment, she let the kunai spin from her hand, and it flew through the air, before it slammed into the tree, taking half of the body of it, and most of the targets, with a single hit.

"Naruto!" Shizune shrieked, dropping a shuriken to the floor. She was by the girl's side in a moment, holding out her hands to see them. "You aren't allowed to use chakra like that! It's very dangerous!"

Most of the children snickered slightly at their panicked teacher, who shot them poisonous glares, which startled most of them.

"Calm down, Shizune. She's just a child," Kakashi drawled from his vantage point up a tree. He dropped to the floor, landing perfectly on one foot, with one hand behind his back and the other clasping an orange covered book in front of him.

"Exactly! She's only a child! A child with a lot of chakra. Put that book away, Kakashi," she ended absently.

Shizune dropped Naruto's wrists, and looked at the little girl, who blinked at her with wide, blue eyes.

"Don't tell ba-chan, Shizune-nee?" she begged quietly. Shizune continued to scowl at her.

"Please?" Tears welled in the corners of her aquamarine eyes, and Shizune's face relaxed.

"Fine. But don't do it again, Naruto-sama!"

Shizune held her hand to her head in a way that reminded Naruto of Tsunade, and as she retreated to stop a child from throwing a kunai into her foot, Sasuke and Naruto hi-fived behind her, Naruto grinning ecstatically, Sasuke's face entirely without emotion.

Thanks for reading. If you have any comments or criticism, please leave a review. I'm sorry this took so long to put up, but I'm up to my neck in school work. I got into Uni though, so it's all okay.

Shizune and Kakashi's presences will be explained at a later date, but it's not too complicated. Also, the explaination of the whole -sama thing i thought was pretty weak. I might update it later when I have time to do it. And Hebi too. Can't forget about him. Neither can Naruto, apparently.

Thanks again

Cassie

xx

(For some reason, there are no line breaks...)


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